We survived the 2024 Maple Season!
I’m not sure that we thrived at times, given the looooong season, but we survived! The 2024 maple season came to an end on April 9th with the last boil. Our first boil at the sugarhouse was January 29th… that means we were in operation for 71 days. When you add in the days spend tapping trees in January, we had a maple season that lasted 86 days! We do not boil every single day during the season, but that is still a long time to be riding the roller coaster of Mother Nature to yield a good crop. Not to mention the two spring snow storms that brought us a foot plus of snow at a time at the end of March/beginning of April.
For all those wondering, we did hit our production goals and even broke few farm records. We collected the most sap in our farm history at over 215,000 gallons. We built our sugarhouse near the farm and our customers… so we haul all our sap in from three different locations. At a minimum, that means we hauled 215 truck loads, but most likely more than that when partial loads are considered. This should have meant a monumental production year, but unfortunately the sugar content measured low the entire season. We like to see sap’s sugar content at about 2%, and this season it average 1.2%. That means more hauling, more firewood, and more time spent in the sugarhouse to process the sap into maple syrup. It wasn’t the most efficient year, but we managed to hold on long enough to hit the highest maple syrup total in our farm’s history at 3,000 gallons. In 2023, we hit 2,560 and it was a marginal season. We’ve grown over the last several years, so it will be interesting to see how we do next year.
Thanks to the long season and record-breaking production, our family and our crew ended the season with an even greater than expected sense of exhaustion. It’s take a couple weeks to break the habits of checking vacuum pressure, monitoring tank levels, and juggling who does what to keep up with production. We also undergo the seasonal adjustment - shifting gears to focus on the upcoming calving season, scheduling tree care projects, and filling firewood orders.
It’s hard to even put a number on how many people came through the sugarhouse this season for a tour, sample, snack or visit. On maple weekend alone, we figure we saw 1,000 people. We’re so grateful for the community of locals and visitors that keep showing up year after year to learn about our passion. We also have to mention our outstanding crew of sap haulers, woods workers, problem solvers, firewood throwers, and shop keepers. You know who you are! There’s no better way to close out the winter… except maybe a few sunny, warm ski days.
maple tap count
5,700 Taps
First Boil - January 29th, 2024
32 boiling days
Last Boil - April 9th, 2024
Total Sap Collected so far…
215,761 Gallons
1.24% Sugar Average
72 Gal sap needed for 1 Gal syrup
Maple Syrup Total
3,000 Gallons
Maple Grades
Amber Rich, Dark Robust, Golden Delicate
We never want to hear that you ran out of maple syrup!! That’s why we established our online farm store. You can shop anytime online and select pickup at the sugarhouse or ship anywhere in the USA. To keep it simple, we offer flat rate shipping. Any special requests for event/wedding favors or wholesale prices should be emailed to us directly.
ALSO - I highly encourage you to join our email newsletter community (entry form at bottom of webpage). This is our only guaranteed way of getting you all the latest info on our farm goods and upcoming events.
be healthy, support local, think maple
~Kelly Webb